Project 415574

Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of premature death for women in Canada. Historically, much of what is known about the treatment and pathophysiology of the disease has been tested on men and then transferred to women. We know there are differences between men and women in the development, presentation and response to treatment for heart disease. Despite this, most heart disease research is not sex specific. A commonly used drug therapy to prevent heart disease is the cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins. Although found to be effective in preventing both first and consecutive heart attacks in men, these drugs have found to be significantly less effective in prevention of heart attacks in women. Also, many women who are diagnosed with heart disease are near the age or past menopause. Many women of this age group are prescribed hormone therapy to treat symptoms related to menopause. The interaction between hormonal therapy and statins is just beginning to be understood. One recent study found that the combination and of hormone therapy and statin drugs resulted in greater prevention of heart attacks in women than statin therapy alone. However, more research needs to be done to better understand why this may be happening as well as if combinations of different types of hormone therapy and statin drugs may show greater benefit than others. We will use a population-based data set to determine whether we can confirm the benefit of combined therapy and, we will search for specific hormone and statin combinations for superior benefit (e.g. simvastatin with estrogen alone)? This research has the potential to significantly impact the outcomes of heart disease in women as well as contribute to what is known about sex specificity of heart disease.